It wasn’t our destiny to be with our lover,Had we lived anymore, the wait would’ve been longer.

I live by your promise, knowing it to be false,Wouldn’t I’ve died of joy, if I were a believer?

It’s through your caprice we learnt that the pact was weak,Could you’ve broken it so quickly, were it stronger?

They should ask my heart, how your half-drawn arrows,Pierce it through, and where do they get their power?

What friendship is this that friends become counselors?There should’ve been a healer, a sympathizer!

Blood would pour unstoppably from the veins of marble,What you believe to be grief may be scorching fire!

If this torment’s heart-breaking, where’d we go hiding?If it weren’t the pain of love, it’d be of our career.

To whom do I complain, of this sad night’s refrain?Death wouldn’t be too bad, if only once it were.

This dishonour on death, why didn’t we drown instead?There would’ve been no tomb, there would’ve been no bier.

Who can see Him? He is One, the Monad. Were thereany duality, our four eyes would pair.

These matters of mystic thought, these renderings of yours,Ghalib, We’d call you a saint, were you not a drinker.

* * *

MemoryTranslation of ‘Yaad’ by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

In the desert of loneliness, quiver
the shadows of your voice, my beloved, and your lips’ mirage.
In the desert of loneliness, under swathes of dust and ash,
bloom the jasmines and the roses after your heart.

The warmth of your breath rises in the vicinity,
smouldering slowly in its own fragrance.
In the distance of the horizon, falling drop by drop,
glistens the dew of your generous glance.

With such love, my beloved, has your memory,
today, caressed the flanks of my heart,
that even if this is a morning apart,
the day of rift seems at an end, comes the night of our match.

* * *

~ Maaz Bin Bilal has a PhD in English from Queen’s University Belfast in 2015 on the politics of friendship in E M Forster’s work. He is currently an assistant professor at Jindal School of Liberal Humanities.

Vinod, 10 January 2019

The reason the Estate Workers were disowned and disfranchised had nothing to do with Kallathonis. It had everything to do with business and electoral ...

The reason the Estate Workers were disowned and disfranchised had nothing to do with Kallathonis. It had everything to do with business and electoral politics. The end of the Kangany system meant that no new workers were coming from India, so the burgeoning labour movement was in a strong position. The Left and the Ceylon Indian Congress together had more than a quarter of the parliamentary seats, and posed a huge threat to the compradore elite and the Plantation Raj. The coalition of the compradore elite, the UNP and TC, just about cobbled together a majority in Parliament. Getting rid of a quarter of the proletarian vote was essential for the survival of the neo-colonial regime.